


Watch the Queen Conquer

by Imagination_Parade



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Arguing, Break Up, Episode: s01e10 Remix, Extended Scene, F/M, Kings & Queens, Post-Finale, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 12:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14520078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagination_Parade/pseuds/Imagination_Parade
Summary: “He’s ruined you,” Dean whispers, and she decides not to dignify that with a response because while she’s not entirely sure he’s wrong, a part of her also feels like Rio brought her back to life.My take on a continuation of the Season 1 finale





	Watch the Queen Conquer

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I got utterly sucked into Brio fic after the finale the other night, and the quality of the writing in this fandom inspired me to throw my own hat into the ring, even though there are already a dozen post-finale fics on here. What an ending, right?! Fingers crossed for Season 2.

“Come on, sweetheart. What’s it gonna be?” Rio taunts, his drawl rolling out of his mouth and crashing in waves against Beth’s ears.

She stands at the other end of the table, breathing heavily, his taunts almost welcome because his voice breaks up the deafening beating in her ears (is that her heartbeat? _Oh god_ , that’s her heartbeat.) The gun – _his_ gun – is both heavy in her hands and feels like a scarily natural fit, and she can honestly say, in that moment, she has no idea what she’s going to do. Her face is a wet cascade of fallen tears, but even through the moisture pooled in her eyes, she can tell that Rio’s looking at her without a shred of fear in his, a sickening grin on his face, and that’s almost – _almost_ – enough for the fear inside of Beth to give way to full-blown fury. He has _got_ to stop breaking into her house.

“You wanna roll with the big boys?” Rio taunts. His tone turns more serious as he says, “Do it.”

Her hand shakes just a little, the unfamiliar weight of the gun in her barely-steady hand finally getting to her, and Rio’s taunts turn into laughs, as if he knows she could never do something like this. Her face hardens at the sound of his nearly uncontrollable laughter, and she blinks the last few tears out of her eyes.

She could never do a lot of things she’s done in the past few weeks.

Rio sees the change in her demeanor, and she knows it, as something in Rio’s look changes then, too. Beth’s eyes briefly leave his and flicker to Dean as Rio grabs his hair and pulls his head back to force him to watch whatever happens next. Unlike Rio, his eyes (what she can see of them) are scared, but he’s quietly watching, not making a sound or moving a muscle, because that gun’s barrel is pretty close to him, too, and he’s willing to bet his wife’s not a great shot (not to mention the fact that he’s not been her favorite person as of late), though he’s silently praying she won’t do what she looks like she’s about to do.

“You gonna be the king, you don’t got all day to make decisions,” Rio says, and she can tell by the way he looks at her that he’s back to internally laughing at the notion that she’d ever pull that trigger.

“Beth…” Dean finally croaks out, earning him a nice hair tug from the thug sitting next to him.

“If you’re gonna do it, do it,” Rio says, a smile teasing the edges of his lips.

_She’ll show him._

Beth’s expression strengthens again, pinching slightly as her other hand comes up to steady the one holding the gun, and her finger firmly presses against the gun’s smooth trigger. The gun makes a little clicking noise, and nothing else happens.

Beth gasps – shock that she did it or shock that it didn’t work? She’ll never know – and the arm she was using to brace herself immediately drops back to her side as she looks at the gun, turning it in her hand as if she actually knows how to look for bullets in the thing. Rio drops Dean’s head and almost manically cackles at the other end of the table.

“Come on, bitch, did you really think I’d give you a loaded gun?” Rio asks amid his laughter.

The anger bubbles up inside of Beth again, and she lets the gun hang by her side, still firmly encased in her hand as if it could actually protect her. She stands up straight and confidently says, “Don’t call me a bitch.”

“Bethy…” Dean mutters, breathing out her name in sheer astonishment, and Rio turns his laughter upon him, yanking his head back again.

“Hey, how’s it feel, man?” Rio asks. “Watching your good little wife over there turn into a killer?”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Beth argues.

Rio looks her dead in the eyes as he says, “Nah, but you wanted to,” and it’s a claim she can’t refute.

“How could you…” Dean says, still in a stupor and struggling to find words. “You’re not…”

“Get out,” Beth orders, cutting him off, her cold glare shifting to her pathetic excuse for a husband. He’s about to be the physical _and_ emotional victim of this cataclysmic calamity, and she knows that’s not entirely fair, but she’s too far gone, too far _done_ , at that moment to care.

She’s not his good little wife anymore, and he should know better than to try to tell her who she is, especially when the gang leader she inadvertently brought into but willingly kept in her life is sitting in their house with a gun. He has no idea who she is, and she’s not sure she does anymore, either, but then said gang leader drops Dean’s head again and looks between them as if he just scored a front-row ticket to the local theater, and Beth thinks he should be silently thanking whatever he believes in that there are no bullets in the gun still dangling against her thigh.

“What?” Dean asks, struck by the sudden change of events.

“You heard me,” Beth says. “It’s _not_ going to be our anniversary. Get out of here. This isn’t your house anymore.”

Dean’s upset turns into uproar. “You almost shot someone, and you’re telling _me_ to get out?” he yells as best he can, pointing to his own chest. “I can’t believe you were going to…the Beth I married isn’t capable of something like that.”

“Yeah, well, the Dean I married isn’t capable of screwing his secretary and lying about cancer to trap me in our marriage once I found out, yet here we are!” Beth retorts. Rio stifles a snicker as Dean looks a little shell-shocked, and Beth says, “Yeah, I know about that. Next time you decide to fake a terminal illness, maybe watch where you’re going.”

“Beth,” he tries again, and then he’s abruptly shutting up because she’s raising her arm, pointing the gun at him and looking like the personification of _hell hath no fury like a woman scorned_ , and he’s not entirely sure she even knows what she’s doing, which almost scares him more than the gun itself. Even though he knows it’s not loaded, and he knows it can’t hurt him, he flinches.

“Get out,” she says again, her voice rising.

“Beth,” he says again, putting both hands in the air in a sign of defense. He can tell that the move slightly confounds her because she furrows her brow before her eyes focus on the raised gun in her hands, widening ever-so-slightly when they do.

“ _Oh god_!” she cries, hurriedly putting Rio’s gun back on the table. She doesn’t want to be holding it anymore. She doesn’t even really want to be _looking_ at it anymore, and she definitely doesn’t want it _in her house_ , but she keeps it on her side of the table, not sliding it back down to its owner, lest the king over there have a handful of bullets in his pocket.

Dean stands from the table gingerly. “Where am I supposed to go looking like this?” he asks.

“That’s not really my problem,” Beth flippantly replies.

A silence almost as deafening as her heartbeat falls across the room as he slowly walks past the table and towards the door. Beth’s eyes follow him every step of the way, and he knows Rio’s are, too. He glances back at Rio, who shoots him a smirk and a patronizing nod, and looks at Beth.

“I’ll be fine,” she says firmly, knowing he’s about to make another plea to stay.

“He’s ruined you,” Dean whispers as he passes her, and she decides not to dignify that with a response because while she’s not entirely sure he’s wrong, a part of her also feels like Rio brought her back to life.

As soon as Dean crosses behind her back, Beth’s eyes turn back to Rio, suddenly engaging in a round of the stupid game her children play where they see who can stare at each other the longest before someone grows uncomfortable and looks away, and it’s not going to be her; it’s _not_. She raises her eyebrows to throw a taunt back in his face, daring him to challenge her again, and Rio finally lets out another chuckle, the warm sound washing over her in the cold room. He stands and walks down the table to grab his gun.

Rio keeps up the low chuckle as he walks towards her, infuriatingly looking like he’d just had the time of his life, and she watches him like a hawk as he shakes the gun a little, sizing it up in his own hands, and if he points that thing at her again, _so help her god_. He doesn’t point the gun at her, instead standing so close to her side, she’s not sure whether he’s going to kill her or kiss her (the realization that she’s maybe something a little more than _not totally opposed_ to the latter option doesn’t even fully register in her brain.) He shoves the gun into his pants, and Beth tries her hardest not to let him see her chest deflate as she lets out the breath she was holding.

“You might have a little king in you yet, darling,” Rio says, his voice only slighter louder than a whisper.

“How’d you get out?” Beth breathes.

“I got boys,” Rio says simply, and of course, Beth thinks, _of course_ he does; of course he wouldn’t stay locked up long. They were idiots to think otherwise.

“Where are you going?” she asks as he starts to walk away.

Rio looks around her ruined dining room and covers it with a wave of his hand as he says, “Well, it looks like you got a mess to clean up.”

As if her body knows he means more than the physical mess in her once-pristine dining room, a wayward tear falls down her cheek again, and he catches it with the pad of his thumb. If her cheeks weren’t already on fire from the events of the last ten minutes, she knows her skin would be scorching under his touch.

He flicks the teardrop from his finger as she gathers her thoughts; he’s halfway between Beth and the door when her voice rings out, “So what, this was all a test?”

She turns to look at him again, and he shrugs. “Maybe,” he admits.

They launch themselves into another staring contest, eyes locked on one another across the darkened living room. Finally, after a few moments that feel like an eternity, the smirk reappears on Rio’s face as he breaks their gaze and heads out her front door, shaking his head to himself as he exits.

After all…every great king needs a queen.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments & kudos make my day ;-)


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